City of Heroes gets optional adverts

City of Heroes is to have advertising added to it via a series of optional billboards.

NCSoft has announced that super-power MMORPG City of Heroes is to have optional adverts added in as a result of a deal with Double Fusion.

Fortunately, the adverts will be completely optional and players will be able to turn off the real world adverts with absolutely no consequences.

"We are pleased to work with Double Fusion on City of Heroes, as they have demonstrated sensitivity to the needs of our community and fundamentally understand how advertising can bring value to the players when executed gracefully, and in the appropriate context," said Brian Clayton, General Manager of NCsoft's Northern California studio.

"In addition to allowing any of our players to opt-out if they so choose, their flexible technology will not only allow us to bring brand messages into the game but also provide a fun, new platform for displaying player-created materials."

Hm. Sure, whatever Brian - as long as we can turn it off without paying for the privilege then we don't really care.

NCSoft is pledging that all profits from the deal will be used to fund a future game, as well as arguing that the adverts will add in an extra touch of realism to the game. What do you think about that? Let us know in the forums.

There have always been billboards around the game with a small number of fake adverts on them, swapping them out for more variable real ones would fit well as long as they were tastefully done (ideally made specially to be in keeping with the style of the CoH world)

The Cape Radio internet radio interview last night with Brian Clayton, Matt Miller (lead dev) and Lighthouse(community manager) revealed that almost, if not all, of the revenue from the ads will go straight back into the development bank for CoH. The reason given for this being NCNorCal is doubling it's dev team for City of*.

I see no problem because the Ads are optional. They aren't forced on the users at all, and in a game like City of Heroes set in a fictional city in the real world United States, it's not too out of place to have the ads. There are billboards, and posters throughout the entire game so something of a real advert to me in that game isn't bad at all in my eyes. It's not like seeing a Coke Billboard is going to totally kill the immersion. The characters exist in the United States with ties to real world organizations anyway.